Sports Chalet Treadmill SALE!!! Save Two Cents!!!

By Ben PopkenJuly 7, 2008

Reader Lindsay spotted this sticker on a treadmill on SALE SALE SALE (for only two cents off) at Sports Chalet back in May. Probably a typo, or possibly an elaborate scheme by the Sports Chalet into convincing customers that he thinks they’re morons.

Had this been posed earlier, I could have gotten a great deal on a treadmill! Of course, I did find a nickel on the subway yesterday, so I guess I’m actually ahead.

@W00dyW00d: “northern” and “southern” are relative terms. There is quite a bit of California north of Pleasanton, and to everyone who lives there, Pleasanton is south of them and… oh, now I’ve gone cross-eyed.

The item is most likely a freshly marked clearance sku. Most companies use either .98 or .97 cents to let either a savvy consumer or the sales staff know that the item needs to be sold off. The sign writing software being used just assumes that since the item is less than its former price, it is on sale.

Instead of laughing at how stupid the company must be, use it as an opportunity to haggle the price down further, after all the company will want to get rid of it before it devalues further.

@That-Dude: That would be in Massachusetts. Different states have different laws. Maybe one of those states that Sport Chalet operates in has a minimum percentage/amount in order for something to be considered truly “on sale.”

That said, I tried looking for something in California law and only found the following:

CA Business & Profession Code 17501 [www.leginfo.ca.gov] : Basically just states that the “former” price should be legitimate and defines it. I couldn’t find anything similar to Massachusetts’ law about minimum percentages/amounts.

Is this really all that surprising? At least it’s a valid discount unlike the Wal-Mart price “rollups.” I like finding these kinds of ‘deals’ at Safeway all the time, where they have a sale tag for something like 2 or 3 cents per unit off, but boldly claiming ‘3 for $5′. I often wonder how many people blindly buy something these days because it says ‘sale’ on it. I know in ye olden days it worked, but now?

The cents were probably changed because everything with a price ending in 7 is probably a clearance item they will no longer be stocking. The item was probably marked down to 599.99 before it was official that they would not be getting any more. So they had to alter the sale price to end in a 7. And the tag most likely just prints the last price even if that wasn’t actually the regular price.

I used to work for Sport Chalet in College 20 years ago when it was an LA area family run business – back then it was a great outdoor and sports store. Now it is just another stock price driven corporate junk store like Sportsmart, Big 5, and the lot.

This type of thing would not have happened back then, and if a mistake got into the field like this, the people on the ground – even the lowly sales clerk – would have caught it and had it corrected; They weren’t just minimum wage drones back then.

Actually it could be on sale for really cheap, the sign doesn’t specify the denomination. Sure it’s 599.97, but 599.97 what? Dollars? Euros? Pesos? If it’s the last one, you’re getting a heck of a deal there. If only the sale hadn’t expired a month ago…

I’m wondering if it’s an software glitch. Amazon appears to have the same thing – sprinkled amidst their usual 25-37% discounts in books, you occasionally see “0.08%” discounts yielding 2 cents off of a $27 book.
(Arguably, that may be the case where the discount was supposed to be 8%, I suppose.)

The poor Sport Clinic schlub probably got a set of stickers from head office and didn’t even read them – peel and stick, peel and stick, peel and …

At Sport Chalet, anything ending in a .97 or a .98 is on clearance and can not be discounted any further. If it ends in a .96 then it is on sale but can be discounted further (if you have an employee discount or a coupon for example). If it ends in a .99 then it is a regular item, not on sale. So, what does this mean? It means the item was placed on clearance and the price reduction was noted on the card. Does it make sense? No, but oh well.